


Magic for Beginners

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Las Vegas, magician
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:10:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a run down theater and a run down magician with three ravens. He has one impossible trick. His new assistant has a lot of questions, but no answers of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for my husband, who came up with the idea.

His hand passed over a paper rose. First it was a white rose, then red, white then red. 

“Why do you want this job?” He asked, staring her down. White. Red. White. Red. 

“Because I’m broke.” She crossed her legs, dark velvet skirt riding up over dark purple pantyhose. Thick plastic glasses and tumbleweed dark hair made her look more like a slightly filthy secretary then a magician’s assistant. 

“Do you even like magic?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“Do you?” She shot back. “Because I came to the show last night and seriously, you looked pissed from the second they introduced you.” 

“It’s difficult to perform without an assistant.” Which was neither an answer nor an excuse. 

“You look like you hate the audience.” She shrugged. “I can help with that. I know how to turn on the charm.” 

“Have you ever worked on stage before?” 

“I was the lead in our second grade production of Little Red Riding Hood.” 

“You were Little Red?” 

“No.” She smiled for the first time, revealing show business ready teeth. “I was the wolf.” 

The first assistant Loki had hired was a fresh faced Michigan girl that looked perfect for the role. She even had her own spangly costume, ready for the showgirl life. But she hadn’t liked his dim little theater or the darker tone of his tricks. She left him for a dancing gig on the strip within a month. The second one had been a laughing boy who couldn’t keep the simple queues straight, let alone the harder tricks. Loki fired him after the second week. The third, an older woman, who reminded him too much of his mother and spent too much time making everything just so. 

His latest girl hadn’t liked learning how the tricks worked, said they ‘spoiled the magic’ and left before she knew too much. 

“That’s stupid.” Darcy picked up the metal rings, the staple of any birthday party hack and deftly interlocked and unlocked them. “Half the fun is being in on it.” 

“Where did you learn that?” 

“I spent a lot of time around people who were smarter than me.” She shrugged, added a third. “You get to figuring these things out after awhile.” 

They rehearsed on the stage for a few hours. He ran through his arsenal of warm up tricks, the little things that built up to big illusions. 

“I like this.” She tossed the black handkerchief into the air and watched with a smile as Fenrir burst forth with a mighty shake of his wings. “But why ravens instead of doves?” 

“Because ravens are smart.” Loki held out his hand and Fenrir sailed down to land on his arm, digging talons into the protective leather. He fed him a scrap of meat. “There are three in the show. Do you like birds?” 

Darcy reached out cautiously, let Fenrir see her finger before she smoothed one down his neck. Black eyes tracked her movement, but he allowed it. 

“As long as they like me.” 

“Sleipnir will. He likes everyone. Hel will probably peck at you.” That he liked Hel best, even with her ferocious beak probably said something about him. “She was injured when I got her, one of her legs gives her pain and makes her difficult to deal with.” 

“So why keep her?” 

“Because she does what needs to be done.” 

He tossed her the white rose, turning it red before it hit her hands. 

“Take that home with you. See what you can do with it.” 

“Why?” She studied the paper folds. 

“Consider it the final question of your interview.” He turned, Fenrir resettling on his shoulder. It had a better effect when he had on his long black coat, but he knew it was a striking exit anyway. “I’ll see you back here tomorrow at noon.” 

She was standing by the stage door when he arrived at eleven forty-five. The rose was in her hand and her face was scrunched up in annoyance. 

“You didn’t give me the whole thing.” She said before he could fish his keys from his pocket. “There’s something missing.” 

“Is there?” He passed his hand over the red rose and left it white. 

“You bastard.” But she was smiling and he smiled back. “Give me the damn job.” 

“Trial period. Three shows this weekend. We’ll see how you fare.” 

It was a good weekend for someone new to start, nothing big enough happening on the strip to cause spillover into his tiny corner three blocks away. The audiences were small and very drunk. 

“And my assistant, the utterly unique, Ms. Darcy.” He gestured her on stage with a flourish and she walked on stage with a raven on each shoulder. Fenrir and Sleipnir, who had, as predicted, taken to her with near slavish devotion. 

She had chosen her costume herself and the effect was striking in a unique fashion. She’d taken in his dramatic black leather, accented with a dark green vest and inverted it. The green dress wasn’t slinky or tight, but it managed to find that strange balance of dignified and sensual that he preferred. Her jewelry was all black, a sleek dark collar with a single glittering diamond and black cuffs that would hide a multitude of tiny tools. 

“Hello.” She blinked out into the crowd and for one moment, he thought she would falter. It was one thing to practice, another to be presented with an audience. 

“Hello!” They drunkenly chorused back and her unsteady expression settled into a smirk. “I see you’ve met my assistant.” 

They laughed. She smiled and winked. 

“Hilarious.” He said dryly and reached out for the ravens. Fenrir came instantly, but Sleipnir leaned in closer, rubbing his head against Darcy’s cheek. More laughter. 

“Go on then.” She coaxed. “He only looks like a Disney villain.” 

Sleipnir squawked, but went and landed fussily on Loki’s free shoulder. In revenge, Loki turned him into a glass of water dyed black as his feathers and drank it. 

They did the rings together, an easy exchange of joining and separation. The steady clack soothed him, readied him for a rapid series of sleight of hand. It was a rain of tricks that usually fell on jaded eyes, but Darcy added something. A sly smile, a wink, a flourish that he would just as soon have skipped over. 

“And now, my very dear friends, I will do us all a favor and disappear!” She grinned and they laughed. 

He vanished her with a billowing black silk sheet and brought her back again. When she reappeared, her dress had changed color, a rich and glittering red. No surprise showed on his face, but when they took their bows, he let her take as much applause as she could gather at the expense of his own. 

“Velcro.” She took off her high heels the second the curtain went down. “Just like magic.” 

“Let me see.” 

She swept her hair back from her neck, showing off the thin line of Velcro along the collar. 

“Just took two cheap dresses, scissors, Velcro and a Bridezillas marathon.” 

“You did this since yesterday.” 

“Nah. I started working on it after I saw your show, in case you were smart enough to make the right choice.” 

The back of her neck was a long pale line, bisected by the black collar. He could see her hair tied back in a bun, her shoulders rounded as she worked. 

“My mother taught me to sew.” He said before he quite knew he was going to say anything at all. “It has come in handy on more than one occasion since I took up this profession.” 

“Man, you had a rough childhood.” 

“How did you know?” Anger prickled just below the surface. 

“A boy who was close to his mother and learned how to sew? Doesn’t take rocket science to figure out how that might go bad.” She spun on her heels and her expression was curiously blank. “Las Vegas is the city of the lost, you know.” 

“Is it? Then what are you doing here?” 

“If I knew that then I wouldn’t be lost, would I?” She picked a pair of jeans off the back of a chair, shimmying into them under the tight confines of the dress. “When’s the next show?” 

“Eight o’clock. You’ll need to be back at seven. There’s a floating trick, but you’re shorter than my last assistant, I’ll have to recalibrate a few things.” 

“Uh huh.” She picked up her shirt, but he could see she was at a loss. “What do you do for food?” 

He turned around, giving her privacy. There had once been dressing rooms, but he had long ago converted them into storage for his collection of antique tricks. Maybe one of the old printed screens could be pressed back into use. He wondered what his other assistants had done, but he had never paid them much mind. 

“You hungry?” She asked. “There’s a decent pizza place down the street.” 

“Javier’s? I’m not welcome there.” 

“Why not?” 

“My brother and I had a fight. We may have broken a table.” He shrugged. “But you’re certainly welcome to go.” 

“A table?” She grinned. “Impressive. We can check out that Thai place then or did you crack a chair over someone’s head there?” 

“No. But their sticky rice is terrible.” He shrugged off his magician’s coat and rolled up the sleeves of the shirt beneath. Good enough to pass as nearly normal in public. 

Out into the late afternoon, the last of the day’s heat still clinging. They walked in silence together, the crowds pushing in and around them filling the world up with useless noise. The little Thai restaurant with its few tables wasn’t crowded. They were ushered to a table in the back, air conditioning raising goosebumps along her arms. 

“You should show me the trick with the rose.” She decided as soon as their orders were taken. The red rose appeared in her hands, edges still crisp. 

“I’ve shown you.” He waved his hand over it, turning it white again. “You’re just looking for the wrong thing.” 

“You’re a terrible teacher.” 

“You’re my assistant, not my apprentice. I don’t have to teach you a thing.” 

“Ugh.” She tucked the rose away. “The air of mystery only works on stage, you know. In real life, it’s creepy.” 

“There isn’t any mystery. It’s all right in front of you.” 

“I looked you up online.”   
“And what did you find?” 

“Nothing. Well. There’s a wikipedia page, a website and half dozen articles that all say the same thing: Loki is an award winning stage magician who began performing a regular stage show in Las Vegas two years ago. He is known primarily for his trained ravens and being the only man who can literally disappear from plain sight. Four times, he has performed a trick where in full view of the audience, he completely disappears and reappears in the balcony of the theater. 

“That’s it. That’s all it ever says.” 

“What else does it need to say?” He set his chin on his hand. “I’m a magician with one good trick and three disagreeable birds.” 

“Right, but where did you come from? Why magic? Why are you like fucking Madonna with the one name?” 

“Where did you come from?” He stared her down until she looked away. “I will make a deal with you.” 

“What kind of deal?” 

“If you want me to answer a question then you will answer it first. And vice versa. Fair?” 

“Yeah, I guess.” She narrowed her eyes. “Does that mean I’m hired?” 

“Three shows, we said.” 

“I am so hired.” Her grin was infectious. “You were impressed with me.” 

“You have a certain flair.” He said grudgingly. 

If she were a raven, the compliment would have made her preen to keep his attention. As it was, she stole his shrimp with a lightening fast fork and told him a series of increasingly terrible knock-knock jokes. Maybe she was a bit of a raven after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She hadn’t meant to sleep with him that first time.

She hadn’t meant to sleep with him that first time. She’s not an idiot, she didn’t slip and fall on his dick or anything, but she respected that he was her boss and frankly, sort of an asshole. Though she’d always liked assholes. She sort of was an asshole herself. 

It was dark in the dark of her bedroom, late in that amorphous after midnight way. It was her place, the cluttered studio apartment with dishes piled in the sink and an open bottle of wine filling the air with a boozy sweetness. 

For three months, she’d been learning how to assist him. She was very good at being an assistant, practically a professional. The actual profession she was assisting didn’t really matter. Making the other person look good, keeping them at peak performance and catering to their needs without coming off as a brainless sycophant had become that Darcy Lewis specialty. 

Two jobs was totally a specialty. Jane and Loki couldn’t be more different though and she’d suited them both, so that meant something. Probably. 

She was good at intuiting things. She never could follow Jane’s math or Loki’s complex trickeries, but she could get from hypothesis to conclusion without either of those things. Like the metal rings she’d picked up the first day. Hefting them, she could feel the places where they would seamlessly give and and part, the same way she’s once drawn a line through a series of stars that lined up just so. 

There had never been a risk of sleeping with Jane though. Jane with her painfully gorgeous and heroically square-jawed boyfriend was a nice untouchable daydream. Maybe Loki and her were alike in some ways, too many sharp elbows and intensity. But Loki had a darkness that Jane would’ve found abhorrent. 

“Watch.” He’d whisper, not to the audience and not to Darcy, but to some unseen observer. Someone he never seemed quite able to please judging by the tight lines around his mouth. After those performances, he’d sometimes go into one of the back rooms and break old furniture down to kindling. 

It was that kind of night that she’d slept with him. He’d emerged, flushed and eyes darting around to land hard on her. 

“What are you still doing here?” He growled. 

“Wanted to make sure you weren’t going to start in on our props.” She pulled on her jacket as if she’d been just leaving and not waiting to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. 

“I wouldn’t sabotage myself.” His posture changed, not the stiff grace of the stage show or the lazy looseness when he shared his lo mein with her, but into a predatory lean. “You should run along home.” 

“And where are you going?” She challenged. “Gonna hit the casino?” 

“It’s not of your business what I do.” He swept up his ridiculous coat, the thick black one that should make him look like a Matrix obsessed cosplayer, but instead was desperately cool and dramatic. “Go home, Darcy.” 

“Just a bottle of wine and bad television there. I want to go with you.” 

He froze up, all the tension bleeding out of him at once. 

“Why?” 

She shrugged. He studided her face. 

“What kind of wine?” He finally asked. 

“Huh?” 

“Red or white? Red gives me headaches.” 

“Uh. It’s white. And cheap as fuck, so it’ll probably give you a headache anyway.” 

“The relative quality of wine to money is a farce.” He turned on his heel. “Let’s go.” 

Which was how he wound up in her apartment without an invitation. He didn’t comment on the furniture, rented along with the apartment and frighteningly bland, or the mess in her sink. Instead, his attention gravitated toward her bookshelf. It was embarrassingly empty, but that was what happened when you ran away without planning. 

“There’s a used bookstore a few blocks away.” She sniffed the block of cheddar when she took out of her fridge and deemed it good enough. 

He didn’t respond, so she cubed the cheese and threw some Ritz crackers on a plate to go with the wine. When she looked up, he was sitting on the floor, a book open on his lap. His hair had escaped it’s usual ridiculous greasy gel hold to fall softly around his face. It made him look terribly young. She thought of him as middle age most of the time, but now she wondered. 

“I’m 26.” She announced, sitting down next to him. An answer to any question she wanted to ask had been the deal, but she wasn’t sure he remembered, so she prompted with “What about you?” 

“33.” He flipped to another page, flashing a bright illustration. It was one of the fairy tale collections. She rarely read them, but she could never leave them behind somehow. “Probably.” 

“You’re not sure?” 

His fingers stilled on the page, thumb idly caressing a thumbnail sketch of troll. 

“When did you realize that you didn’t quite fit in with your family?” He asked. 

“Thought you had to answer the question first then ask. Thems the rules, dude.” 

“Well, _dude_ , it relates.” 

“How’d you know that I didn’t fit in?” 

“You haven’t mentioned a single member of your family since we became acquainted. Also you’re a very odd person.” 

“Gee. Thanks.” She passed him the plate and set the open bottle of wine between them. Glasses meant getting up and she didn’t see that happening just yet. “I was thirteen and I got detention for giving the finger to my douchey science teacher. No one in my family got detention. My parents are really straight laced. Liberal and all, but they played by the rules. My sister was the same way. They were all in the car when they picked me up after and it was like...I don’t know. One of those stupid games where you pick the apple from a group of vegetables or whatever.” 

“At seven, I let another boy beat me until I could run away. My father and brother were horrified.” He picked up a cube of cheese, rolling it between his fingers. “Three days later, I swapped the boy’s apple juice for piss. My mother shook me until my teeth rattled and she was notoriously even tempered. My way of justice wasn’t acceptable.” 

“What does that have to do with your age?” 

“You didn’t fit in because you had different ideas. You were alienated. Imagine now if you were actually an alien?” 

“Like E.T.?” 

“No.” He rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched so her aim was achieved. “They didn’t tell me until I was in my senior year of high school that I was adopted. Not even a conventional adoption where I could maybe find my birth family one day. My father found me while he was on patrol in the bad part of town. Someone had left me out in the cold, to die of exposure most likely. But...well. He didn’t wait around to check, did he? I’ve always wondered if they just set me down to take care of something. If my mother...well. It doesn’t matter, does it? They guessed that I was about ten months old, but no one was sure given the malnourishment.” 

“Jesus.” She handed him the bottle of wine. “That’s heavy. Why’d they wait so long to tell you?” 

“I ask myself that question all the time.” He took a long swallow of wine. 

“But not them?” 

“Dead.” He shrugged, handing the bottle back to her. “Mother, then my father not long after.” 

“My sister died.” The words were ash in her mouth, but he deserved them just then. She took her own too long swallow of the wine. “When I was fifteen. Freak thing. Blood clot from this medicine she was taking. She was sort of a ditz, but a nice one, you know? She’d gotten into a decent school and had this boyfriend that wasn’t good enough for her. All this drama and complication and breathing and then...not. Just gone. My parents were fucked up after that.” 

“But not you?” He looked at her sidelong. 

“I was already fucked up. That didn’t help.” 

“I have a brother.” The cheese finally went into his mouth, chewed slow and swallowed thickly. “Ditz isn’t a bad word for him, even if he can turn on his brain at the worst possible moments. He always, always outshone me. It’s like living in the shadow of a redwood.” 

“Depressed enough, yet?” She handed him the bottle back. 

“We’re drinking cheap wine on a dirty carpet, eating cheap dyed cheese and talking about our childhood angst. Yes. I’m depressed enough.” 

“Awesome. There’s probably a TLC ‘you’re life may be sad, but look at these strange motherfuckers’ marathon on. I’ll order pizza.” 

They finished the first bottle of wine halfway into the first episode of Sister Wives. Loki watched it with a truly frightening amount of intensity and drank the first half of the second bottle before remembering she was there. 

“Seriously? This has your full attention?” 

“He’s just...such an asshole. And these women seem decent enough. What do they see in him?” 

“I know, right? I think it’s the hair. It stupefies them or something.” 

As the evening wore on, he kicked off his ridiculous boots and stretched out along the couch, leaving her no choice, but to stretch her legs alongside his. She studied his stockinged feet, the high arch of them and the way his toes curled when he was mulling something over. The television did his face no favors, casting his paleness into an ill pallor and washing away the green of his eyes. 

They’d gone to a few bars together, nothing weird, just taking the edge off after too many shows in a weekend. He’d buy her a cocktail and then turn the charm on some unsuspecting victim. For every scrap of charisma he lacked on the stage, he made it up twofold. For a half hour, he was the world’s best listener, fantastic flirt and silver tongued Casanova. Darcy had watched him leave with someone each time, both genders and every kind of good looking. 

He’d never even tried to turn that on her. With her he was caustic, irritable, alternately too personal and too distant. It was like he couldn’t be bothered to fake it for her, so she saw all the raw ugly bits that he usually swept under the proverbial rug. 

“You’re staring.” He accused without looking away from the television. 

“Free country.” She picked up the wine bottle and found it far too light. “How are you not completely smashed?” 

“High tolerance.” 

“Goddamn. My head is swimming.” That didn’t stop her from a last swig. “Getting late.” 

“Is it?” 

“You shouldn’t walk home in this neighborhood this late. Want me to call a cab?” 

He turned at last, studying her. 

“Do you want me to?” 

“You have to answer first. Your rules.” She pulled up her knees, propped her chin on top of them. 

“I’d like to have sex. If you’re not interested, I’ll probably go find someone else.” He said casually. 

“Probably.” She clucked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “You’re my boss. Power imbalance. Totally wrong. This is technically sexual harassment.” 

“So complain to the HR department.” He snorted. “Anyway, I’m hardly harassing you. If you’re not interested, it’s not going to make me fire you.” 

“It would be weird. Between us. After.” 

“Would it?” He sat up, suddenly right in her personal space. He smelled like wine, bird feathers and the gunpowder he used in the finale. 

“Sure. Sex makes everything messy. What does it make us...you know all of that.” 

“There’s no one else in my life, but you.” He seemed to discovering the truth of it as he said it. “What about you?” 

“You mean romantically?” 

“I mean at all.” He slid his hands over hers. “You’re my only companion and I pay you. How much more messy could it could get?” 

“I used to have people.” She smiled faintly. “I’m not a complete loser. Not that you are...” 

“No, I would argue that I lost the game of life fairly spectacularly at this point.” He shrugged loosely as if it barely mattered. “I’m waiting for the next round.” 

“If we’re all we have then we really shouldn’t have sex. What if we both go back to square one? Also, pointing out that you pay me? Now I’m seriously uncomfortable.” 

“I pay you to hand me cards, not sleep with me. I promise to find you another job before I fire you for not putting out.” 

“You’re an asshole.” 

“But a gentlemanly one.” He winked and she conceded the battle. 

“Fine, but you better go down, my friend. I have zero patience for one sided oral.” 

He kissed with a tongue that wrote checks it could certainly cash. 

The sex was stupidly uncoordinated at first, tripping over each other and falling onto her unmade bed. Her laptop stabbed her in the thigh and he bit down too hard on her shoulder. They figured it out eventually though, the fission of excitement overriding the prickling heat of embarrassment. He went down on her like he didn’t have to breath and wrung her orgasm out from her in a new record. She returned the favor with the kind of blow job that had earned her some dubiously complimentary nicknames in college. 

Neither of them talked much afterwards. She peed, brushed her teeth and put on a t-shirt before climbing back into bed with him. He waited until she was settled before tentatively laying a hand on her hip. It was so in contrast to his boldness not five minutes ago that she almost laughed. Instead, she set her hand on top of his and wove their fingers together. They fell asleep just like that. 

So the first time was sort of an accident. A really intentional accident. The second time, in the dawn’s first creeping light, he rutted into her until their breath mingled damply together. The second time was entirely on purpose.


	3. Chapter 3

The vacuum made a familiar growl as he swept it over the thinning red carpet. This had been his task for so long that he could remember having to hold the stem halfway down, constantly in danger of dropping it onto his head. He was far taller than it now and it had grown cranky in its old age. 

“What’re you doing?” She appeared in the corner of his vision, sitting on the edge of the stage. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” 

“Cleaning.” She sipped from tall white cup. 

“You’re astute this morning.” 

He finished the job, the last of the human detritus swept away. With care, he carried the vacuum to the supply closet, tucking it back into its usual sentinel position. He stared at it for a long moment, listening to the old motor tickdown. Perhaps he should just store himself alongside, another ancient mechanism that refused to give way to the passage of time. 

Annoyed by his own maudlin thoughts, he shut the door and returned to the theater. She was still sitting on the edge of the stage though now she had some sort of catalog open on her lap, flipping through it with idle curiosity. 

“Apparently collapsible top hats are on sale.” She commented when he came closer. “Also, magic trunks are ridiculously expensive.” 

“They’re handcrafted generally.” He stepped between her legs, pointed elbows resting on her knees. “Most magicians don’t buy from catalogs. They use professionals to design their tricks.” 

“Not you though.” 

“I design my own.” He made a small gesture that meant ‘of course’. 

“Hm.” She set aside the catalog and leaned down a little. She liked to study his face, trace the rise of his cheekbones and the slope of his forehead as if some new terrain might arise. He let her. “You’d probably be happier making impossible things for other people to use.” 

“I like performing.” He said, stung and would have retreated if her hands hadn’t landed on his shoulders just then. 

“I think you like having the audience’s attention. I think you like showing off, but the whole dog and pony show isn’t really your gig. You’d like it better if other professionals were impressed by you.” 

“I’m a magician.” He was caught, held by her light touch. “We perform.” 

“That’s a narrow definition.” She kissed him, almost forgetfully and he wondered if she knew what it did to him. 

Casual touch had been so long out of his life that such gestures on her part brought him to standstill every time. It was addicting as it was terrifying. He was good at being alone, professional even, and he preferred to think of himself as a contained system. A biodome requiring no one. Each day she spent with him chipped away at that idea, leaving him on unsteady ground. 

“You’re early.” He realized when she pulled away a little, leaving a smudge of lipstick behind. He could feel it drying on his lower lip. 

“I figured I’d go through the mail you’ve been ignoring for months.” 

“No one sends me anything worth worrying over. I pay my bills online.” 

“Yeah, but sometimes there’s something you should look at.” She pulled an envelope from her coat. It looked heavy and formal. “I’m guessing this is an invitation.” 

He took it from her with a furrow of confusion. The address was correct though the last name was wrong. It would have been right once upon a time. 

“Loki Odinson and Guest.” She smirked. “So, Odinson? You’re not Madonna after all?” 

“I changed it legally a long time ago. Don’t get excited.” He opened it with care, revealing a stiff invitation and a personal note scrawled over the back of a voided invoice. “Fuck!” 

“What?” Darcy blinked. “What is it?” 

“My-” He stopped. Not brother. Not for so long, but what else could he call him? “Its a wedding invitation.” 

The note read only 

_Loki,_

_Perhaps it is time to let bygones be bygones. You are my only family left. Jane, my fiance, tells me that weddings are good time for forgiveness._

_Your brother,  
Thor _

Loki crumpled the note into the smallest possible ball, shoving it deep into one of his false pockets. 

“Wait, you’re related to Thor?” Darcy stared at the invitation. 

“You know him?” His heart sank. Because of course she did. Of course, Thor had managed to ruin even this tiny corner of happiness carved out of the anger and sorrow that made up Loki’s life. 

“Sure, I know him. He’s the douchebag that’s marrying my old boss.” She cast down the card, mouth drawn tight. “He’s half the reason I wound up like this. I mean, it’s not actually his fault. Just, he and Jane got all couple-y and she changed her priorities. Less research, more focus on finding a permanent position so they could set up shop. I had less to do, you know and-” 

“You worked for Jane Foster?” The woman was only a name to him, a curlicue declaration on a piece of paper. 

“Yeah. She was my friend too. Though I guess I ruined that.” Darcy picked up the invitation again, turning it over and over in her hands. “What are the odds of this?” 

“I find that the universe will twist itself into knots to create such painful ironies.” Loki rubbed at his forehead. “I could incinerate it and we could go on as we have.” 

“Did you get a plus one?” 

“What?” 

“Well, I could go. With you.” The edges of the invitation started to wrinkle under her fingers. “I mean, if you decide to go. Moral support.” 

“And you could make amends.” 

“Maybe. Maybe you could too.” 

Loki folded his arms over her legs, felt the slow rise of heat from her skin and smelled the lingering orange of her soap. The mere thought of seeing Thor knotted into his stomach and revived ancient grudges. But it hadn’t always been like that. He could remember running up and down these aisles, hiding among the chairs and being found by a laughing older brother. They had danced across this stage and played soldiers with wooden swords. They had loved each other once. 

“He was my brother.” He confessed to her thighs. 

“Okay.” She asked no questions and he breathed through the silence. 

That night, he lagged a second behind, but she moved a second too quickly. They were out of sync and rubbed raw with catching up by the end of the show. He’d entirely forgotten what had started off his earlier cleaning spree. 

“What is this?” Darcy approached it with wide eyes, palming down the embroidered silk held taught in a wooden frame. 

“Ah.” He stared at it afresh. It had been sitting in the window of a thrift store, blue thread on black. Loki owned very little, had very little to spend, but there were certain objects of beauty that could not be ignored. “For you to change behind. I know how it damages your modesty.” 

“That was before we started doing the nasty.” She tried for sarcastic, but she was still petting the screen as if it were alive. 

“Lovely.” He rolled his eyes. “But I assume that some privacy is still required. So. You have it.” 

She did change behind the screen and it was somehow more tantalizing imagining what went on behind it then simply turning his back. Even with his head in a fog of regret and stale anger, he could imagine the swell of her ass or the sweet curve of her thigh revealed as she skimmed off pantyhose. 

“You bought this for me.” She announced as if it were news, flinging the words over the screen along with the red slinky dress. 

“I bought it for my assistant, whoever that may be.” He volleyed back, making no move to change himself. 

“For me.” She said again, more firmly. “These are my colors, my taste. You bought me a present.” 

“It belongs to the theater.” 

“You bought it. Not the theater.” 

“I hardly think it matters what bank account it comes out of.” 

“Wait.” She stuck her head around to stare at him. “You own this place?” 

“Yes, of course.” He frowned. “Didn’t you know?” 

“How was I supposed to know that the one scruffy magician that performs here also owns the joint?” Her head disappeared, only to return seconds later. “I have like, a thousand questions now, you realize? And nothing to barter with because I don’t mysteriously own a theater.” 

“Let’s say when you’re ready to tell me how you came here, I’ll answer any of your questions about the theater.” 

She frowned, turning this new bargain over. 

“I want to know how the rose works.” 

“That’s not about the theater.” He pointed out, just to be contrary. 

“I’m aware.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I meant, what do I have to tell you to find out about the rose?” 

“Get dressed. I’m hungry.” 

“That wasn’t an answer.” 

“Wasn’t it?” 

They ate a mountain of pasta, hers with a meat sauce and his with pesto. She stole off his plate with blithe disregard for any protests he made and drank far too much cola. They talked about the show instead of the day’s revelations, but it circled back there no matter how they tried to avoid it. 

“What about your big trick?” She asked. 

“What about it?” 

“Why have you only done it four times?” 

“Why do you only wear low cut tops when you want a discount at the bookstore?” 

“Hey!” 

“I’m drawing a parallel, not leveling a criticism.” 

“So what,” she plunged her fork into the last strains of noodles, “you’re big disappearing thing is like my spectacular rack?”

“Yes. It’s my ace in the hole. If I use it too frequently, it will become....mundane. No longer exciting.” 

“I last flashed in New Orleans to get Mardi Gras beads. When was the last time you performed?” 

“Six years ago, for the reopening of the theater.” 

“It was closed?” 

“Obviously.” He plucked up a piece of bread, drawing the crust away from the white fluff within. “But that’s a part of the larger story.” 

“Right.” She sighed. “God, I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.” 

“Too much caffeine.” 

“Nah. Well. Yeah, but that’s not why. You want to come over?” 

The invitation was welcome just then. He’d invited himself by simply following her home on a few occasions, but it never felt the same as when she actively courted his attentions. He even liked her terrible hole of an apartment filled to bursting with her things. He’d bought the screen because it was so obviously hers and he’d wanted a little of that there. 

“Come to mine.” He decided. 

“I wasn’t sure you had a place.” She couldn’t hide her pleased smile. “I thought maybe you slept in the coffin.” 

“It has a false bottom. I’d turn the wrong way and wake up on the floor.” 

He took her back to the theater, her eyes on his fingers as he slid open the trap door toward the backstage. There’d once been a trick for the door that required three people, a blurring of reality that left the audience in stupefied awe. Now it was just an easy way to come and go. 

“Don’t tell me you actually sleep here.” She tsked. 

“My rooms are upstairs.” 

The curving metal staircase made her choke back a laugh. 

“Shit, it’s your serial killer lair. I’m meeting my deserved end at last. Horror movie victim.” 

“Don’t be asinine. I’d hardly serial kill someone so obviously tied to me.” 

“Right, that’d just be dumb.” 

He didn’t think much about his apartment anymore. It wasn’t exactly an apartment anyway. More a small section of a series of rooms that had once been a sort of dorm for the hotel staff. The hotel which no longer stood under the name Asgard, instead fading into a genteel obscurity under other ownership. A fact that would no doubt come up at his and Thor’s ill-advised reunion. 

When he’d sold the hotel, he’d moved in here temporarily. A nest to lick his wounds in. Three years later, it had become less of a metaphorical nest and more of a literal one. It was neat enough, tidied that morning when he put out the screen and found so much looking shabby in comparison. He’d never been one for mess really. 

Instead he had his bedroom, dominated by a massive antique bed complete with velvet canopy and a tall mattress. Curtains hung like drooping eyelids, cutting down the harsh desert light. The ravens liked to linger on the window sills, their talons scratching into the old wood. They roosted there now, Hel hunkered down and glowering between Sleipner and Fenrir. 

Darcy stood in the doorway, then turned slowly to him, 

“If this was a black and white movie, you would bite my neck right now.” 

“I’m not a vampire.” He folded his arms over his chest. 

“No, you’re an evil genius.” She agreed, then charged the bed with a whoop. The down comforter, clothed in its silken case, embraced her and she sank down with a groan. “Forget you and your slick ways. I’m hooking up with your bed instead.” 

“We’re a package deal.” 

He climbed in beside her, settling hip to hip. They worked well like this, swaddled in darkness and rising body heat. 

“I wanted to be a politician when I grew up.” She traced her fingers lightly over his wrist. “Maybe the first woman president. What about you?” 

“I wanted to be the world’s best magician.” 

“Still time for that.” 

“I am already.” He laughed, only a little bitterly. “Probably the best living one anyway.” 

“You’re good. Great, maybe. But you’re not doing the stuff of legends.” 

He didn’t bother to argue with her. It was connected to too many other things that remained behind his teeth. 

“What happened to your political career?” He asked instead. 

“Never happened. I wasn’t really motivated enough and by the time I graduated college, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do anymore.” 

“Did you ever consider being a magician’s assistant?” He teased. “You might be passable at it.” 

“Passable?” She sat up indignantly, grabbed his pillow and smacked him in the face with it. “I’ll give you passable!” 

They wound up rolling across the bed, tugging every carefully tucked sheet out and shedding clothes along the way. She wound up on top of him, hands planted on his chest and her head thrown back. He planted his hands on her hips and forgot everything else for a precious string of minutes. 

Afterward, she refused to budge, a heavy blanket over him. He stroked his hands down her back, felt every knob of her spine. She was soft now, pliable and lazy. When he tickled over her sides, she gave a squeak of protest, but didn’t bother moving away. It felt a little like trust and he had no idea what to do with that. 

“Fool.” Hel croaked. “Fool.” 

“Yes.” He snagged at a sheet, drawing it over them both. “That seems likely.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Food fights and melancholy on the way to the wedding.

“Is it cheating if I wear one of my costumes instead of a new dress?” She kneeled on the floor beside a half-filled suitcase. 

“Cheating at what?” He was laying on his stomach across her bed, a book forgotten under his hands. 

“I think you’re supposed to wear something new to a wedding. Or at least something that you haven’t sweated in a million times.” 

“The black and green would make a nice statement.” He said mildly. “Strength and confidence.” 

“You just want me in your colors, you territorial weirdo.” She threw out, surprised when dropped his gaze. “Wait, seriously?”   
“It’s a flattering dress.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another. 

“Right.” She reached for it though, smoothing it out on the floor beside her. “And you booked the hotel in Flagstaff?” 

“Insofar as you can book any fleabag motel. We won’t exactly be staying in luxury accommodations.” 

“Still better than nine solid hours on the road, trust me.” She mated socks, counted underwear while he watched. 

“We don’t have to go.” 

“You keep saying that like it’ll going to change my mind.” 

“All I’m saying is there isn’t a requirement.” He closed his book, giving up all pretense. 

“Maybe you don’t have to go, but I do.” Two pairs of jeans, a flared black skirt and a series of t-shirts landed into the case. “I’ll go alone if you’re going to chicken out.” 

“You can’t double dog dare me into emotional trauma.” 

“Watch me. Okay, should be enough room in here left over as long as you’ve got a garment bag.” 

“Enough room for what?” 

“For your stuff.” She zipped the bag closed, placed the dress tenderly on top of it. 

He went still. The strangest things caught him off guard. She wanted to pin him down sometimes and make him explain. And others, she hoped he never told her why. There were layers of scar tissue under his skin that made her own wounds like papercuts. 

“You didn’t pack any pajamas.” He pointed out instead of explaining his momentary weirdness. 

“Do I need to pack them?” 

“Hmm.” He held out his hand to her, drew her to his side. 

For two people who regularly raced around a stage as work, they spent an awful lot of their free time in beds. At first that had been a product of the crazy amount of sex being had, but now it was just their default position. And a crazy amount of sex. Six months since that first impetuous night and she still found herself starving for him. Some grace wave of his hand or the way he turned on his heels or the catch of his scent in her nose and they were off again. 

And she liked him. Goddamn, but she liked him. He was funny, clever and dry as the desert. He had a thousand sharp edges and almost no give at all. He made her laugh, kept her company like he had nothing better do at every odd hour of the day and sometimes, when she most needed the quiet, he would disappear into his nest above the theater. She wound up pursuing him half the time, digging him out of his hole when aloneness wore out it’s welcome. 

“Shit.” She buried her face in his neck. “We’re in a relationship.” 

“This is news to you?” He laughed into her hair, but she didn’t miss the tensing of his muscles beneath her. 

“I thought we were fucking around. Friends with benefits. But we’re like...actually totally together, aren’t we?” 

“Is that a problem?” 

“No.” She said quickly, whipping her head up so fast that she hit his chin with her forehead. “Ow, fuck. No. Not a problem. It’s...good. Really good. For me. As long as you’re good with it.” 

“I would have protested the first time you used my toothbrush if that was the case.” He rubbed at his chin, easing the sting. 

“That’s your deal breaker for a casual fling? The toothbrush? Really?” She snorted. 

“Yours is apparently suitcase sharing. I would argue that mine at least involves bodily fluids.” 

“It wasn’t the suitcase.” But it sort of was and sort of wasn’t. “Monogamy work for you?” 

“I’ll have to see if I can turn away the thronging hoards first.” 

“Hilarious.” 

“Fidelity isn’t a problem for me.” He stopped smirking. “You?” 

“Done and done.” She paused. “I feel like there’s supposed to be more discussion here.” 

“Like what?” 

“No idea. I’ve never really done this before. Dated in college, but that wasn’t really the same.” 

“I suppose there’s the housing question.” 

“I hate this apartment like burning.” She frowned. “And you have like a dozen weirdass empty rooms.” 

“You want to live in the theater?” He looked startled. “Why?” 

“No commute.” She dropped a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “And I like the dusty old pile of wood. It’s got character. Even if we don’t work out, it’s not like I can’t find another rat hole to live in. Or become your Mrs. Rochester.”

“Mrs. Rochester?” 

“You know, Jane Eyre, creepy crazy wife locked in the attic?” 

“I thought she was a metaphor for the ghosts of the past.” 

“I swear it’s like we’re not even reading the same books sometimes.” Darcy grinned, couldn’t help it. “So I’ll move in with you.” 

“After the wedding.” He said, a little stiffly. 

She sat up and studied his face. 

“You don’t think we’ll still be together after the wedding, do you? It’s why you never pointed out the whole relationship thing on your own.” 

“Why do you act like an idiot when you can just...do that.” He covered his eyes with one hand. “I hate that.” 

“No, you don’t. If it wasn’t for my amazing insight, you’d still be jerking off in the mirror at home.” 

“In the-” 

“The point, ass, is that you think we’re going to break up because of your brother.” 

“Because of me. Of who I am to him. Who I am when I’m around him.” He peeked through his fingers. “He brings out the worst part of me.” 

“And if I see all your dark, angry bits then I won’t want to be with you anymore?” She made a soft sound of disgust. “Dude. Way to give me no credit at all.” 

“It’s not a matter of credit. It’s a matter of you being a rational person, most of the time.” 

“You make me irrational.” It was true too. He made her want to throw out everything she knew about life and start over again without rules or sensible physics. “It’s way more likely that I’ll wind up bitchslapping him than leaving you.” 

“Why?” 

“Because anyone that makes you this miserable before you’ve even seen them deserves to be slapped.” 

“He’s infuriating, but...I’m the villian in his story, Darcy.” 

“I’ve played that role a few times.” She pried his hand off his face. “I have no idea who you used to be. But I think I know you now and I’m pretty okay with who that is.” 

“You’re a ridiculous person.” He declared, but his expression had returned to its imperious default. 

“So’s your face.” She returned merrily. 

His trepidation stayed with her though they moved on to other things. Throughout the week, he seemed wound tighter and tighter, closing down whole sections of himself. By the time she picked him up in the tiny silver rental, he wasn’t making eye contact. He settled a garment bag over their suitcase in the back seat and then hauled up a wire cage. 

“You’re bringing the birds with us?” Darcy reached into the cage to scritch at Sleipnir's head. “Seriously? I can’t imagine the hotel is cool with that.” 

“Then we won’t let them see.” He shrugged. Hel wasn’t even in the cage, but perched on his shoulder half-hidden in his hair. “There’s hardly a birdsitter I can call.” 

“You could just leave food and water out for them. They’re pretty clever, they could fend for themselves.” 

“They’re very intelligent, you know.” He reached up, ran a hand over Hel’s back. “They feel loneliness.” 

Darcy did not point out that the ravens were probably perfectly content with their own company or at least, could suffice for a few days. Whatever they were walking into, he clearly wanted all the allies he could get. That ‘all he could get’ was his girlfriend/employee and three disgruntled birds pretty much said it all. 

“I didn’t know how you felt about car snacks.” She said instead. “So I just got popcorn and M and Ms. They’re in the back if you get hungry.”   
He turned around to investigate, pulled out a liter bottle of Pepsi with confusion wrinkling his brow. 

“That’s my happy juice. Drink it and face my wrath.” 

“Heathen. Coke is far superior.” 

“I will make you walk to New Mexico, so help me.” 

They blew past the Leaving Las Vegas sign and rolled through the desert, the radio filling the silence with increasingly statiky classic rock and commercial jingles. When it gave up entirely, Loki flicked through stations with idle patience. He ate the M and M’s slowly, one by one. The colors melted over his fingertips, red and green and yellow. 

“When was the last time you left the city? I don’t think I have since I got here.” She kicked the a/c up another notch. 

“A decade ago. I used to travel quite a bit though.” 

“Ten years?” Her voice rose up a little. “Seriously?” 

“I couldn’t for awhile and once I could...I suppose I was comfortable.” 

“Comfortable in a place that’s hot as hell and has twice the sin per capita?” 

“It’s home.” He shrugged. “I grew up in Vegas.” 

“That I really can’t imagine. I grew up in the ‘burbs around San Diego.” 

“How did you wind up in New Mexico?” 

“They offered me a scholarship. It made sense at the time. Why couldn’t you leave?” 

The radio blasted out a country song and he flicked the dial again, “My parole officer frowned on it.” 

“You’re not going to tell me the story behind that, are you?” 

“It’s a part of the theater story.”

“I’m beginning to think the ‘theater story’ is shorthand for everything about your past that you don’t want to tell me.” 

“Perhaps.” The ghost of a smile flickered over his lips. “It was....hm. Clusterfuck is the word that comes to mind.” 

Scrubby brush, red rock and asphalt slid by the car in a lazy haze. The outskirts of Flagstaff welcomed them into an old, but clean motel. Loki made the ravens disappear in what Darcy considered one of his best tricks yet. They reappeared inside the room, roosting on the shower curtain pole. 

“Want to see the sites? Paint the town red?” She sat down on the edge of the bed with a wrinkled nose. “Tough as rocks. 

He crushed her against the mattress, legs tangling and the nip of his teeth at the curve of her neck. She slide her arms around his back, prepared for a whirlwind session, but after that first bite, he didn’t follow up with anything else. Bemused, she rubbed her cheek against his. His skin was always smooth, stubble refusing to rise to the surface. She’d never seen him shave, come to think of it. 

“We’ll get dinner.” He mumbled, but made no effort to rise. 

“Yeah, okay.” She pressed the heel of her hand down his spine. 

They did wind up getting dinner, late enough that only fast food places were still open. He ate a pathetic looking salad while she murdered a stacked up burger. In jeans, loose t-shirt and heavy circles under his eyes, he looked nothing like a magician. Just another traveler on his way between here and there. 

“I talk to my sister a lot.” She offered, when the quiet had gone on too long. “Just about...stuff. We didn’t talk a lot when she was alive, but it helps.” 

“If he were dead, I think it would be easier.” He took one of her fries, breaking it in half and then in half again. 

“It wouldn’t. Take my word for it.” 

“Your sister was not my brother.” 

“True.” She handed him another fry when the one he’d been fiddling with disintegrated entirely. “But I loved and lost, jerk. I get it.” 

“I’m not sure how I feel about all these insults.” 

“You secretly love them. Insults are your love language.” 

“You’re demented.” He determined with more contentment then he’d shown in weeks. 

“Love languages are a real thing. You want to make Darcy happy, I’m all about the acts of service. Do something nice for me and I’m yours.” 

“I thought you were already mine.” He tilted his head in a way that made her think of Sleipnir determine if something was edible. 

“I belong to myself.” She tossed a fry and nailed him on the forehead. 

Darcy had never been thrown out of McDonald’s before. It sounded way less hardcore than getting bounced from a bar. She laughed so hard and long about it that she became seriously worried about oxygen deprivation by the end. Loki still had bits of fried potato in his hair. She reached out and very gently touched the tip of his nose with one finger. 

“You’re it.” She said solemnly, then high tailed it. 

Tomorrow, they’d face some ugly demons, but right now she was running down a street in strange city whooping with laughter. Loki was on her heels, breathless seconds from catching up. Soon they’d crash together as inevitable as stars collapsing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone loves a wedding.

He paused in the vestibule to take a breath. Inside, men in suits mingled with women in cocktail dresses. Some of them he recognized, old faces swimming up through the murky water of old memory. 

“I can see the bar from here.” Darcy stood up straight, nearly to his chin in her sharp heels. She held out her arm. “Buy me a drink.” 

“It’s open bar.” 

“Then it’ll be a cheap drink.” 

He took her arm. They walked in together as if they were any other couple. He even had a neatly wrapped gift tucked under his other arm. They made it unmolested to the bar though the scrabble of whispers clawed at their backs. It wasn’t until they both had drinks in hand that a bulky man in tuxedo detached from the group to stand before them. 

“Volstagg.” Loki said softly. 

“I had hoped you’d have had the sense to turn him down.” Volstagg rumbled. “It was a courtesy.” 

“It was an invitation.” Loki swirled the whiskey over his tongue. “Freely given and well-intentioned. Why would I turn it down?” 

“Because you aren’t welcome.” Sif stood beside Volstagg as beautiful as she had been in youth. Stripped of her bullet proof vest and hair tumbled down her face, Loki could make out a passing resemblance between her and Darcy. Perhaps he had a type. 

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you people that it’s bad manners to pick fights at a wedding?” Darcy tossed back her drink and set the empty glass on the bar. 

“Who are you?” Sif turned, eyes cutting over Darcy. 

“I’m Darcy Lewis, his plus one.” Darcy looked back, clearly unimpressed. 

“Do you know that you consort with a murderer, Ms. Lewis?” Volstagg may have used her name, but his eyes were nailed to Loki’s face as if he could bore holes right into his skull. 

“Consort with a murderer?” She snorted. “What the hell are you? Ren faire employees?” 

“It’s true.” Sif said, very gently. “He’s a killer.” 

Loki stopped hearing them, missed Darcy’s snappy remarks and the accusations of people he’d half-forgotten. All it took was a glimpse of one blond head and the words were sapped from his throat and his heart froze in his chest. 

Thor looked good: pinned down in a well cut tuxedo, hair pulled off his face and beard neatly trimmed. Well wishers ebbed and flowed around him as he crossed the space. Loki knew the minute Thor had noticed him, the electric charge that caught and held in the air between them. The last few steps were an eternity and over far too soon. They kept a few paces between them, a polite distance. A stranger’s distance. 

“Loki.” Thor looked him in the eye, the same ridiculous blue. The smile had faded from his face, replaced with grim reluctance. “You came.” 

“I RSVP’d.” Tucking his hands to the small of his back, Loki kept his posture straight. They were equal in height, but he always felt diminished somehow in Thor’s presence. “I even brought a gift.” 

“You look...well. Better than last we met.” 

“Yes. Well. Being strung out never did anyone any favors in the looks department.” 

They stared at each other. It was a first for them. Wordless. They should be screaming, maybe throwing punches, but perhaps too much time had gone by even for that ancient fire. 

“They absolved you. The LVPD.” Thor finally said. “They called me when they closed the investigation.” 

“Did they? How nice. They never bothered to inform me. Though I suppose the lack of handcuffs and dreary cell were clues.” 

“I’m sorry that I thought- That I believed you could’ve-” 

“Why shouldn’t you have? I was certainly capable of it.” He shrugged tightly. “You weren’t there at the end. Didn’t see...how pathetic he had become. That wasn’t how he would have wanted to live.” 

“Still. Mother always had faith in you. And her judgement-” 

“Was skewed.” Loki smiled, couldn’t help it, the reflex reaction to the bile building in his stomach. “She never would believe the worst of me, even when she saw it before her.” 

“I never know what you want me to say.” Thor shook his head. “Do you want me to believe your guilt in the face of the evidence or to accept that I was wrong?”

“I can’t tell you.” Loki let out a slow breath. “Let me know if you figure it out, I certainly never have been able to." 

“Heavy.” Darcy stepped in alongside him, her hand a fleeting caress over his lower back. “Hi, Thor.” 

“Darcy!” Thor’s entire expression changed from tight anxiety to easy joy. He swept her off her feet into a hard hug. “Jane has been so worried for you. How did you hear about the wedding? She’ll be so happy you’re here.” 

“I’m Loki’s guest.” She gasped out when he set her down at last. “I saw his invitation and sort of invited myself.” 

“You know my brother?” 

“She's his girlfriend.” Sif intoned as if announcing a death in the family. 

“And his plucky assistant.” Darcy took Loki’s hand, her palm was sweaty. An old vicious part of him wanted to shove her away, to take back the armor of empty space around him. To have the freedom of worrying only for his own fate. The newer, wiser part, clung to her. “You really think she’ll be happy to see me? I thought she might be pissed.” 

“She'll have words for you.” Thor allowed. “But her happiness will outweigh her anger.” 

“Mr. Odinson!” A wide eyed employee appeared at Thor’s elbow, tapping on a clipboard. “We need to get everyone seated and lined up for the processional.” 

Loki tugged at Darcy’s hand, leading them away from the crowd to a quiet corner. She slotted up against him as soon as they were out of sight, tugging him down for a hard kiss. Her lipstick smeared over his lips, waxy and sweet. 

“What’d you do to these people?” She asked when they parted. 

“I murdered their king and ruined their livelihoods.” 

“Man, it really is all Shakespearean up in here.” Her hands settled on his waist. “Thor said you were cleared for the murder though.” 

He kissed her again, ran the tip of his tongue over her bottom lip. Something to enjoy while he still could. The dark strands of their hair caught at each other. He wanted to carry her off, abscond into the twilight and drive back to Vegas, bar the doors and windows. Let the past stayed safely sealed. 

Instead, he let her lead the way to the small chapel. They sat near the back by a gaggle of people that Darcy assured him were, ‘Jane’s science people’. Loki recognized nearly everyone else, except for a few elderly relatives that must be on Jane’s side. When he had imagined this, he had pictured a throng of people turned out to see his brother wed his beautiful bride. 

“Bigger turnout than I thought.” Darcy scanned the crowd. “Must be some of Thor’s doctor friends.” 

“I thought it would be larger.” He frowned down at the program, a creamy bit of stockpaper. 

“Nah. Jane wouldn’t let Thor make a kegger out of it and anyway, guy seems to have mellowed a bit.” 

Mellow wasn’t the word Loki would put to Thor at that moment. Standing at the altar, Thor seemed to radiate the sunny joy that Loki remembered from their childhood. The music began and the bridge came in. She was accompanied with no attendants to lead her way. Her dress was simple...and familiar. 

He stood with everyone else, mouth dry. She wasn’t built like Frigga, too slight for that, but they must have had the dress tailored. It fit her well, flattered her body. A nosegay of pink roses rested easy in her hands. 

“You okay?” Darcy whispered as they sat again. 

“No.” He smiled, mimicked the other guests. 

“Yeah. Me either.” She leaned into him until he put his arm around her shoulders. 

They stayed hidden during the early stages of the reception, their seats tucked away in a dark corner with other unsuitable guests. They ate bland chicken as Jane and Thor swayed together to tinned music. 

“Bride or groom?” A tipsy middle aged man leaned in to Loki. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Which side?” 

“Neither.” He gestured at Darcy, who was putting a serious dent in the table’s bottle of white wine. “I’m her plus one.” 

“Darcy!” Jane shouted when she finally spotted her. Running in the full skirt must’ve been difficult, but that didn’t seem to trouble her. She caught Darcy up in a hug that might’ve rivaled Thor’s in intensity if not in the possibility of a cracked rib. “Thor told me you’d come and I couldn’t believe it. How are you? Are you still in Vegas?” 

“Yeah, I've been good. Really good. Still in Vegas, city of sin, very fitting.” Darcy looked a little watery. “You look amazing.” 

“Yeah? It’s Thor’s mother’s. He said she wouldn’t mind and it was so beautiful.” Jane smoothed a hand over the folds. “It’s not actually a bridal gown. No idea what else you use a white dress like this for.” 

“It was a magician’s costume.” Loki wanted badly to touch the satin of it, feel that catch of it under his fingers. “It was a trick where she turned the dress from white to red.” 

“Really?” Jane studied him, nearly impersonally. “You must be the brother.” 

“Must I be?” He sighed. 

“I should slap you, all things considered.” She squared her shoulders. “But it’s my wedding and you brought me Darcy, so you’re off the hook for today.” 

Despite himself, he wound up liking Jane. She talked in complex knots of terminology, drifted off more than once in the middle of a sentence and seemed to expect Darcy to finish them. There was a certain uncomfortable mirror there that he wasn’t about to look at too closely. He offered her a dance, after Darcy made some hasty hand signals. The satin felt the same under his hand, a potent liquor of old and new muddling into a knot in his stomach. 

“I know everything.” She told him, stepping on his toes. “Everything Thor knows.” 

“That’s not everything.” 

“Everything I want to know. Things I would think were unforgivable.” Her nails weren’t painted, broken tips curled over his hand. “But he misses you. Keeps a picture he thinks I don’t know about and tells stories with this hole in them where you probably fit.” 

“Maybe those stories are better for the missing parts.” 

“Maybe.” She stepped harder this time, a challenge in her brow. “Maybe not. Consider this your last chance to find out.” 

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, an older man with a shock of white hair. He reached for Jane and she went with a last pointed look. Loki started back to the table to find Sif and Darcy in deep discussion. Darcy caught his eye, shook her head, flapped her hand toward the bar. He ordered her another drink, leaning against the bar and watched the couples swinging by. 

“Would you apologize?” Thor leaned in beside him, tie undone and hair falling loosely about his face. 

There were a thousand smart answers on the tip of Loki’s tongue. None of them made it by his lips. He sipped in a breath and let it out in a long stream. 

“I’m not sorry for hating him. I’m not sorry for the upset I caused looking for the truth. For who I am.” He took Darcy’s drink from the bartender, watched the light catch in the dark depths of it. “I’m not sorry that I took what you thought was your birthright. 

“But...” He dared a look at Thor. Thor, who for once, seemed willing to wait for Loki to finish his thought. To listen before he drew his bumbling conclusions. “But I am sorry that I lost your trust. I’m sorry we ceased to be brothers.” 

“You never stopped being my brother.” The mighty boom of a voice dimmed to a hoarse whisper. “How could you think that?” 

“I’m the cuckoo in the nest. Stealing the food from your mouth.” 

“You’re the boy that I lost every staring contest to and beat in every wrestling match. You’re the teenager that stole my tips to pay off gambling debts, then turned around and bailed me out of jail for twice the amount.” Thor stared at him. “You’re my brother, Loki. There is nothing you could do to change that.” 

“You...” He gestured the bartender over. “Are, as ever, an idiot.” 

“As you are an ass.” Thor grinned and ordered far too much vodka. 

Later, Darcy had to guide Loki back to the car and pour him into the passenger seat. He had forgotten Thor's impossible tolerance and how quickly vodka could turn his legs to jelly. 

“What did you and Sif talk about?” He asked, watching the slope of her nose flash in and out with the passing streetlights. 

“She told me you broke the hearts of every woman that ever loved you.” She shifted minutely, glasses turning her eyes into unreadable squares of light. “I asked her how many that was and she said two. I pointed out that that was too small a sampling size to draw conclusions. Then I asked her how she got such amazing biceps. We talked workout routines the rest of the time.” 

“When we were children, she broke my wrist playing touch football.” He snorted, head lolling loose on his neck. “In two places.” 

“Yeah, she mentioned that.” Darcy glanced at him. “You get beat up a lot?” 

“That’s not how the game works.” He reminded he. 

“The game sucks.” She poked him hard in the ribs. “Tell me.” 

“Ow.” He protested though he barely felt it. “You realize it’s iron-iro-” 

“Ironic to abuse you while asking if you were abused? I know. C’mon spill it.” 

“No.” He lifted his chin defiantly. “You first.” 

“After the first time some kid tried to mess with me and I took him down with a knee to the balls, so no. Not a lot of childhood beat downs.” 

“How old were you?” 

“Dunno. Seven or so? You’re turn.” 

“I received my fair share.” Vodka churned in his belly. “I certainly didn’t help my cause.” 

“Sif said after that, you shaved her head.” 

“Mmm. Her hair was down to her waist by then. I had to wait until I healed, I needed both hands to do it.” He remembered her pained shriek, reaching him all the way in one of his boltholes. “Her hair was nearly blonde before. Grew back in black.”

“And she still dated you?” 

“Me?” He laughed, a lose chuckle that ran loose. “Never. We had an...understanding. When we were teenagers. But not in public. Neither of us were proud of it.” 

“She loved you though.” 

“Did she?” The laughter died. “I doubt that.” 

“Why?” 

“We sank claws and teeth into each other. Ripped each other to pieces.” 

“Sounds like teenagers in love to me.” 

“You’re a romantic.” 

“Please.” She poked him, more gently this time. “You know better.” 

“Do I?” 

He wasn’t good for much when they got back to their room, but she didn’t seem to mind. With care, she stripped off his tuxedo then bullied him under the covers. Fenrir flew over, settling on the headboard while Sleipnir shifted his beak through Darcy’s hair. He cast up his hand, waiting for Hel to settle on the rise of his shoulder. She wouldn’t stay there for the night, but she would keep him company while Darcy showered. He fell asleep to the low hum of the television and dreamed the snap of bones. 

Despite the pounding headache that woke him early, he thought they’d made it out with far less damage than he’d imagined. She conjured up music that let him sleep most of the way back. 

“Thought you didn’t want to do the drive in one day.” He commented as she gunned it past Flagstaff. 

“I wanna go home.” 

Hel croaked in agreement and he let her speak for him. 

They celebrated their return with a dinner of cold pizza and several episodes of Breaking Bad, marathoned off her laptop in his bed. Sex never quite got around to happening, but they went to sleep naked. He woke rutting against her. 

“Might as well do something about.” She rolled onto her back and pulled him over her body like a heavy, randy blanket. 

He watched her face as she worked towards orgasm, the flutter of her eyelashes and the slight gap of flushed lips. Her nails bit into his back, her legs wrapped around his waist half to guide and half to keep him close. Dawn slanted through the curtains and for a brief, painless moment, he was happy. 

They came back down slowly. She wouldn’t let him pull out right away, keeping him close with a tenacity that he didn’t have the will to fight. 

“I started driving.” Her voice was low, confessional and shot like lemon juice into the milk of his joy. “It was supposed to just be an hour ride to get some data from some old guy who’d never figured out to digitize anything. It was winter and Jane was in full cocoon mode. Not talking much. Doing things I didn’t understand.” 

“Darcy.” He buried his face in the crook of her neck. 

“You made me a deal.” 

“But-” 

“Cope and deal, dude. It’s happening now.”


	6. Chapter 6

“It isn’t an exciting story.” She piled up his enormous pillow collection, reclining on them. Her nudity didn’t bother her just then, shared as it was. It almost fit in a way, the exposure of it. “Just...I was already driving, you know? And I had this shitty radio station on and there was nothing between there and where I was going. One minute, it was all fine and the next...I don’t know. It was one of those moments where you ask yourself, ‘Is this it?’ Like is this my life? Am I going to be a gopher to someone who barely needs me anymore? Do you know what I mean?” 

“Yes.” He had rolled over on his stomach, pillow shoved between the sharp point of his chin and his folded arms. Every iota of his attention must’ve been on her, the intensity of his gaze a physical touch to her skin. 

“Okay, so I had that thought and then there’s this sign. Not an omen, a real sign advertising Vegas being only an hour away. I’d been once, years ago, with friends and had one of those wild drunk weekends. I don’t even know any of them anymore. They were nice girls, but they all...moved on somehow. And I didn’t.” She picked at a loose thread on the sheet. “I was always the funny one back then. That Darcy sure is a hoot. She’s sarcastic. Clever. Witty. With a great rack. But I hadn’t made anyone laugh in a long time. I thought maybe if I came back here, I could find that again. That definition.” 

“You are clever.” 

“Wasn’t looking for compliments.” 

“It’s not a compliment.” He said dryly. “It’s a statement of fact. I don’t suffer fools well, you know.” 

“I hadn’t noticed.” She reached out, stroked a hand over his hair, letting the strands slip through her fingers. “Anyway, I got here and I meant just to walk around for an hour or two, maybe get a drink and through a few bucks down at a blackjack table. But I got a little lost, wound up off the strip. 

“And there was this rundown looking theater with an old fashioned marquee and fat gold cupids everywhere on the front. They were selling tickets to a magic show and what’s more Vegas than a third rate magician with cheap tricks and bad lighting?” 

“Behold.” He grumbled. 

“Shut up. I got a surprise, right? Because you were good. Really good. But no one else seemed to think so. Or maybe they were just too busy drowning their sorrows, I don’t know. Of course, you’re lousy stage presence didn’t help any. Or the way you insult the audience.” 

“It isn’t like they’re paying attention.” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait. You weren’t living here when you applied for the job? Your resume had your apartment address on it.” 

“I was living here. I got a hotel room that night. Got the apartment a few days later. Took a retail job and sent a letter to Jane resigning. I owed her a lot more-” She stopped, took in a shuddering breath then went on. “Well. Anyway, I had the stuff in my suitcase. My old room mate sent me a box of my clothes and a few odds and ends in exchange for the last month’s rent. Started over. 

“It’s supposed to be amazing, starting over. I don’t know what I was expecting. For things to fall into place or to rediscover myself or some of that Oprah shit. Instead, it was the same old thing in a different place.” 

“Wherever you go, there you are.” He smiled faintly. 

“Yeah. Exactly. But that night when I was watching you turn ravens into handkerchiefs? It was different. For just a few hours. I remembered myself. So I came back...and back. And back. Each time, it worked.” 

“How many times did you come to see me?” Disbelief put lines in his brow. 

“Ten. Maybe eleven. I didn’t keep count. It wasn’t like the tickets were hard to come by.” She shrugged. “Don’t let it go to your head. It wasn’t about you. Well, not all about you. This is...it’s weird, okay? But there’s this look that you get when you’re doing certain tricks. When you forget that you’re pissed at the universe. Like that’s all you want to be doing. That you would do it even if no one could see you because it makes you happy. That’s what I wanted. That’s why I applied for the job. I wanted to know what made you so happy when the rest of the time you seemed so miserable.” 

“Did you figure it out?” 

“What makes you happy? No. I stopped trying in the first few weeks.” 

“Why?” He raised himself a little. 

“Cause I was being an idiot. There’s never just one answer that works for everyone. Never is. I got to like the work, I liked you. I felt useful and being useful made me happy. Also getting to be snarky in front of a lot of bright lights.” She shrugged. “Everyone’s got their thing. Apparently that was mine. So I found it by accident.” 

“You’re happy?” It was a tentative question as if the answer might shatter some fragile glass. 

“Yeah, I’m happy. Thought we’d established that.” She poked him in the side with her toes. “So that’s it. That’s the whole boring story of how I came to Vegas. No allusions to murder, bloody sibling rivalry or drugs. Sorry you’re getting the dull end of the stick on this one.” 

“Do you still want to know?” 

“Know what?” 

“Why certain tricks make me happy?” 

“Well, yeah. Of course. I mean, I think I figured it out though.” 

“Did you?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Do tell.” 

“They’re the ones that your mother taught you.” She smiled when his eyes widened. “I’ve been paying attention and I learned a few things at the wedding. She was a magician, right?” 

He nodded reluctantly. 

“So, yeah. They make you feel closer to her. I know you miss her like crazy, but when you do those things, it’s like she’s still with you. I mean. I get that. I feel that way sometimes when I’m doing my nails. My sister always used to paint them for me and it was one of those few times when we really...I don’t know. When we were together.” 

He pressed his lips together, looked away from her for a long moment. She waited, done with talking for the moment. They both knew that it was his turn now and she wondered if he would back down. What would she do if he wouldn’t tell her? She couldn’t really imagine making good on a threat to walk away. She was happy and if he had to hoard his secrets awhile longer, she could deal. But for how long? Forever? 

“Do you have that paper rose?” 

“What?” She blinked. “Why?” 

“Do you have it?” 

“I...yeah.” She flushed. 

It had become a part of her pocket book collection, kept safe in a pocket. The edges had gone a little ragged from being carried around. Sometimes she took it out and tried to figure out the trick or just to admire the sharp paper creases. It didn’t mean anything. Admitting that she carried it around though was as good as confessing to a school girl crush. Then again, they were fucking now so, maybe it was stupid to be embarrassed. 

“Can I see it?” He held out a hand, apparently oblivious to her inner turmoil. 

Her purse was across the room. When she bent over to retrieve it off the floor, she caught his eyes on her ass and almost laughed. He smiled, caught out, and a knot in her chest eased. This conversation wasn’t going to ruin them. They’d figure it out. 

“Here.” She deposited it in his outstretched hand. “Pervert.” 

“I don’t think looking at your ass is what makes me deviant.” He sat up, gestured her down beside him. “Now. Watch.” 

He held his hand flat and passed the other over the rose. Red. White. Red. White. 

“Yeah, I know. You’re very impressive.” 

“I’m not wearing sleeves. You know I went to bed without anything on me and I hardly secret tricks under my skin. So what you have to ask yourself is how is it done?” 

“Sleight of hand or something about the paper? Both? I don’t know. It’s been driving me crazy.” She picked the rose up, turned it over and over as she’d done a dozen times. “I thought it might be body heat or some kind of chemical, but nothing I tried worked.” 

“Do you know what Occam’s Razor is?’ 

“Yeah, Sherlock, I know. The simplest answer is usually the best. So what’s the simplest answer?“

“Watch.” He took the rose back, set it in the flat of his palm. His other hand he set on her knee. 

The rose turned red. Then white. Then red. He never moved. 

“How are you doing that?” 

“The simplest answer, in this case, is the best.” White. Red. White. Red. “You asked me once about my grand finale. The trick I’ve only done four times. Pay close attention.” 

The rose floated in the air alone. He had disappeared entirely. The rose went on changing: red, white, red, white. With shaking hands, she reached for it and plucked it from the air. 

“What the fuckity-fuck? She closed her hand around the flower. 

“It’s a trick so good that I can’t do it too often.” He appeared again, on his knees before her. “People might ask questions.” 

“Magic!” She accused. “You...you do magic! Like real honest to God, Harry fucking Potter magic.” 

“I did it before he was popular.” 

“Oh my- hipster. You’re a hipster wizard.” She dropped the flower to grabbed his face between her hands. “How? Why? Why the hell are you a broke ass magician instead of raking in a fortune on the strip?” 

“Because going to jail once was more than enough.” He put his hands over hers. “It’s only illusion and they only work as well as a regular magic trick most of the time. I can’t really turn one thing into another. I can fool the eye.” 

“Just...magic. It’s magic! That’s ridiculously huge! You’re a sorcerer! A...a witch!” She laughed, a little manically, “I’ve been having sex with a wizard. Like a real live one instead of that guy in college with the character sheet and complicated dice.”

“I’m not a wizard or a witch or a sorcerer. I’m an illusionist. I was born with it or I assume I was anyway. Odin always claimed that’s why he took me in. Because who else could raise a child like that-” 

“You’re mom.” She took in a deep breath, the pieces of the puzzle starting to shift into a new configuration. “She was like you?” 

“Better. She could do more. Heal people. Comfort them. I never managed to effect anything real. But yes, you’re right. She taught me. Tried to teach me to use it ethically. That part, I’m afraid, never did quite stick.” He pulled away until she had to release his face. Sitting back on his heels, still naked and skin gone cold out of the bed, he looked raw and nearly as shaken as she was. “I tried. Helped my brother, his friends...protected them when I could, but I never felt a part of any of it. It’s an old story. A group of rough kids, who knew I had quick fingers befriended me. Taught me to steal, how to gamble.” 

“How to cheat a casino?” She gripped the edge of the mattress. 

“I taught them that.” He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “I thought I was brilliant. I didn’t even need the money. Odin owned half this street at one point, you know. A real estate mogul. Bought the theater and the hotel just for mother so she’d always have somewhere to perform. The Asgard Hotel and Frigga’s Theater. A kingdom that my brother and I were meant to inherit one day. Share the throne, somehow. 

“Until I became the problem child, of course. Sixteen years of good behavior blown away in a cloud of cocaine and obscene amounts of cash. I got caught because of the drugs in the end. The casinos couldn’t bust me for cheating without knowing how I did it, but they could get me on a fake ID and possession. I tried to run when they caught me, so they slapped resisting arrest on there. ” 

“And I thought I was the rebel because I skipped class.” She knotted her hands together. “So you got busted.” 

“Thor had gotten arrested twice by then. I bailed him out once. The second time, father made him stay for six months, but had his record expunged.” Loki grimaced. “Favorite son reforms. Joins the army and straightens out. Meets the girl of his dreams. Drop the curtain. Everyone applauds.” 

“How long were you in for?” 

“Four years. Two in a juvie, two in a regular prison. Frigga...my mother. My mother came to visit me every week. One week she just....didn’t. I thought she’d forgotten or finally...but Thor came the next week. First time he’d come to see me and it was to tell me she was dead.” 

“Damn.” She stared at him. “That must’ve...I can’t even, actually.” 

“She saw a woman getting mugged and fought the guy off. She didn’t see that he had a gun.” He glanced up at her then away again. “It seemed so very wrong. Here, me in my prison cell, Odin on his high horse and my idealistic brother with his head in the clouds and hands clenched in fists and she...she was the that wasn’t allowed to live. What sense does that make?” 

“It doesn’t. Life just..doesn’t.” 

“Chaos. The only God going.” He rolled his shoulders as if his grief were a cape he could shrug off. “When I got out, Thor had gone back overseas, fighting another man’s war. Odin had grown old in her absence. There was no one else to keep up the business, so I did it. With everyone’s whispers behind my back and the old employees quitting one by one to get away from me. The felon. The bad son on the throne. 

“Except the kingdom wasn’t what it had been. They’d hidden it from me. From Thor. But the recession hit things hard. The money had dried up. I got the blame, of course. Even Thor still believes I ran it into the ground.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I thought about running a scam, but any influx of cash would have brought suspicious.” 

“There’s nothing you could’ve done differently.” She wanted badly to embrace him, but there was nothing she could do to take this away from him. Maybe he had earned it somehow, but it hardly mattered either way now. 

“No?” He smiled weakly. “That’s a generous assessment.” 

“It must’ve worked out though. You’ve got the theater.” 

“My mother’s doing. The hotel and theater were in her name. Odin had control over it until his death, per her will, but it came to me when he passed. That’s half the reason they thought I’d killed him.” 

“Only half?” 

“The other being that I hated him viciously and publicly.” He shook his head. “Even as he got too weak to speak, he still made his opinion of me obvious. As if he hadn’t created me. I was never man enough, never strong enough. Too clever and too devious. Unfortunately for him, I was legally next of kin with Thor out of the country. I was the one that took care of him until he got too sick to stay home. I was the only one to visit him. Mother would’ve been proud.” 

“She would have.” Darcy finally did reach out again. When he wouldn’t come to her, she sank down to the floor beside him. “She would have been proud of who you’ve become.” 

“I doubt that.” He leaned into her fractionally. “But the thought is sweet.” 

“You hate sweet. So okay, I get the picture. He’s dying. He dies. They think, what? You smothered him with a pillow or something mustache twirly like that?” 

“They assumed as a grieving son that I pulled the plug on his life support.” 

“Did you?” She asked because the question had to be shoved out of the way. 

He didn’t answer. She waited him out. Eventually his hand curled around hers, tangled their fingers together. 

“I don’t know anymore.” 

“How can you not know?” 

“I wasn’t sleeping. The business, the creditors...it was a nightmare. I’d stay up late at his bedside and I’d take these short naps, microsleep I think they call it, and I’d dream about unplugging everything. The night he died, I woke up from a dream like that and went for a walk to clear my head. When I got back...the cops took me in the second his body was in the ground. They could never prove anything, but I’d had that dream and reality had become so mushed together. Maybe that wouldn’t matter for a normal person, but with the magic-” 

“But you said it wasn’t physical.” 

“What if was? What if just that once...I did it. I killed him.” He clutched at her hand. “I hated him. You can’t know how much.” 

“Even if you did, you’re not a murderer.” 

“Aren’t I?” 

“I think that requires like a huge discussion about assisted suicide and if someone is technically still alive if they’re brain dean and a whole lot of ethical questions that I’m way to fucked up answer right now. But no. I don’t think you’re a murderer.” She frowned. “Just a wizard. A wizard with a really sketchy past. So like...Tom Riddle pre-Voldemort madness.” 

“I’m not a wizard.” He sagged into her, tension leaving all at once. 

“You totally are. I’m buying you adorable glasses and a wand.” 

“Riddle didn’t have glasses.” 

“Well, you’re not Riddle. That was a terrible analogy. You’re like...Sirius.” 

“Wasn’t he an alcoholic douchebag?” 

“Okay, so after our long talk about ethics, we can add an angry argument about how Sirius Black is the best ever and you are apparently always wrong about Harry Potter which saddens me on many levels.” 

“I vote we never have either of those conversations and go eat brunch instead.” 

“Could you actually eat after all this?” 

“No, but I can watch you eat.” 

“I’m not hungry.” But her stomach, clenching around nothing, proved her a liar. “Okay, maybe like a bagel or something.” 

It was odd to get dressed and walk into the sunshine like nothing had happened. He looked just the same, pale stretch of muscle under black jeans and green shirt. He held the door open for her at the diner and ordered them both coffee while she looked over the menu. His legs bracketed hers under the table. 

“We should go to the supermarket after this. Pick up a few boxes.” 

“Why?” 

“So I don’t have to move in garbage bags.” She didn’t look up from the menu, ran a finger over the omelets. “Too many books for that this time.” 

“I have boxes. In the basement.” He offered after a long pause. “They have old programs in them mostly. Easy to empty.” 

“Okay. So we’ll unpack you, then pack me.” She lowered the menu. 

He was smiling, uncomplicated and joyful. 

Just the way he did before one of his spectacular tricks.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A grand finale.

“Now, my lovelies,” Darcy flung her arms wide to the audience as if to embrace them all, “we have a very special trick for you tonight. Don’t we, Loki?” 

“That we do.” He grinned, boyish and utterly fake. “You see, my brother and his lovely new bride are in the audience tonight, so I’m volunteering them to come on stage.” 

Jane frantically shook her head even as Thor grinned, boyish and entirely real, and dragged her upwards. It was clear that Thor had tread the boards before, looking about with soft nostalgia as the spotlight tracked him. Jane twitched into a nervous grin after Darcy patted her on the shoulder. 

“Hello!” Thor waved to the audience and they shouted merrily back at him. 

“Indeed.” Loki rolled his eyes. He took up a candle, lit for a previous bit. It was a tall fat taper, perfectly white and only just beginning to drip. “Thor, if you please. Would you blow this out?” 

“Of course!” Thor boomed, the mics shuddering a little on the assault. Thor inhaled and gusted out a mighty breath. The candle flickered, the wax turning a deep red, before the flame righted itself. 

“Oh, dear.” Loki winked at the audience. “It seems you’re not up to the task.” 

“So it would appear, but we’ve spent all night watching your tricks.” Thor said, apparently unphased. 

“Perhaps your Lady Jane should try it.” 

“Oh, well-” Jane glanced back at Darcy, who shooed her on. With a frown, Jane pursed her lips and blew. The flame didn’t so much as flicker, but the wax turned from red to purple. 

“That is a very difficult candle.” Darcy winked at the audience. 

“Do you think you could do better?” Loki challenged. 

“Sure! Let me at ‘er.” 

Darcy’s breath turned the wax green. Loki’s turned it black. 

“I know what we’re doing wrong.” Loki shook his head. “Foolish of me. This candle won’t go out for just one person.” 

“No?” Thor rocked on his feet, smile increasing. “Perhaps two then?” 

“Perhaps.” Loki held it out to Thor. “You and Jane should try it together.” 

“On the count of three.” Thor held the candle out to Jane. “One.” 

“Two.” Darcy intoned. 

“Three!” Shouted the audience. 

Thor and Jane blew and the black candle turned to a black ribbon that fell gracefully to the floor. 

“A tricky candle.” Loki tsked, then searched the stage. “Darcy?” 

“She disappeared!” Jane gasped, searching the stage. Her genuine confusion egged on the audience. 

“I can’t do the finale without her.” Loki picked up the black ribbon, playing it out between his fingers. 

“Perhaps we can serve in her stead.” Thor suggested. 

“No, I’m afraid this requires her and her alone. Stand back, brother. Let me attempt to summon her.” 

Thor still knew when to take a cue. He drew Jane off the stage into the wings.

With a flick of Loki’s wrist, the ribbon floated outward, far longer than it originally looked. He twisted it around and around, watching the thin cloth gain momentum until it was spiraling through the air. Releasing it, the audience gasped as it continued it’s serpentine path through the air on it’s own. He reached into a pocket and pulled out another ribbon and another. These he cast directly up, catching them in the invisible tornado. 

“Return!” Loki commanded, clapping his hands together. The ribbons exploded into black feathers, the cawing of the ravens filling the theater. The birds flew in different directions and their feathers settled to reveal Darcy in a white dress, holding the still lit black candle. 

“Ah.” Loki said quietly when the applause died down. “There you are.” 

“Here I am.” She agreed. “You still haven’t managed to blow out your candle.” 

“But it isn’t my candle.” He reminded her. “It’s yours. Perhaps you should be the one to put it out.” 

“Maybe. Or maybe we should just let it burn.” 

She held it to the audience then drew her hands away. The candle spun lazily in the air. She held out her empty hands to him and Loki took them. They started to spin, children at play, the candle hovering above them. Her eyes locked on his and the sound of her laughter rising up and up. He smiled and made them disappear from sight. 

Invisible to the crowd, they soaked in the raucous applause and whispers of confusion. She held their joined hands to her lips and kissed his knuckles, grinning when he copied the gesture. 

“What if we didn’t reappear?” She whispered. “What if we just left them guessing?” 

“Part of the trick is coming back. It’s easy to just disappear. Coming back is what leaves an impression.” 

“Yeah.” She blinked a few times, shaking off some other thought. “I guess you’re right.” 

The candle flickered out and they reappeared, locked in a kiss. They acted as if the crowd had surprised them, blushing and making jokes. Took their bows and left to let the curtain fall on the single, floating candle. 

“We knocked ‘em dead.” Darcy danced before him, dress swirling around her legs. “We’re going to get a ton of press.” 

“Was that wise?” Thor stood before silkscreen, his earlier joviality melted away. 

“It was fun, was what it was.” Darcy stepped behind the screen, tugging Jane along behind her. 

“It was a way to prevent bankruptcy.” Loki said into the silence. “The theater is all I have left. Darcy thinks a few good reviews would get us back on track. That and the other acts she’s started booking in. Though I’m not sure how I feel about an all ukulele band.” 

“Be serious.” Thor grumbled. 

“I am being serious. Five ukuleles is too many, I don’t care what she says.” 

“If you’re caught...” 

“Then what?” Loki demanded. “Will they do worse to me than I’ve done to myself? As far as I know, doing magic isn’t a crime.”

“She worried about you doing things like this. Bringing too much attention to yourself.” 

“There’s no attention to be brought. It’s a magic show. Everyone thinks they know how it works. It’s all done with mirrors or hadn’t you heard?” Loki folded his arms over chest. 

“Everyone is too clever for real magic these days.” 

“Have a care,” Thor sighed heavily, “that’s all I ask.” 

“I don’t have to. Darcy does all of that for me.” 

“Do what for you?” She came back around the screen, back in jeans and sweater, colorful scarf. Jane came out with far more makeup on and her top looked tighter. 

“Did you just perform a ten second makeover?” 

“You’re not the only one that performs fast illusions.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “Everyone ready for dinner?” 

They walked to the Thai place. Jane and Darcy chatted and laughed. Thor and Loki kept silent watch behind them. They were nearly to the restaurant when Thor said quietly, 

“If I’d known you were in financial trouble-” 

“Don’t.” Loki cut him off. “It’s better if we solve our own problems now, don’t you think? We never were good at getting each other out of messes.” 

“You were better at it than I ever was.” Thor quirked a smile at him. “But then again, your messes were always more complicated.” 

They ordered a daunting amount of food that Loki mostly only picked at. Darcy kept shoving her fork at him, making him try this or that. He humored her, distracted by Jane’s explanation of her current train of research. 

“But surely if you were to get such a thing to work, wouldn’t the gravitational pull destroy anything that you tried to explore it with?” 

“No, I don’t think so. It’s incredibly difficult to prove, but there should be a way.” Her vast eyes widened impossibly further. “Do you know about wormholes?” 

“I have a layman’s interest in the laws of physics.” Every since he learned he could essential defy them, he’d been fascinated by their complications.  
Encouraged, Jane launched into a far more detailed class on the peculiarities of astrophysics. Loki was dimly aware of Thor and Darcy discussing something beside them. It took him off guard when they all started to stand and collect their things. Jane and Thor were staying on the strip, a whirlwind weekend trip. 

“We’ll meet for lunch tomorrow.” Thor half-suggested, half-ordered. “The Bellagio buffet. On me as a congratulations for the reviews.” 

“They won’t be out by tomorrow and you don’t know that they’ll be good.” 

“They might and I do.” Thor clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Good night.” Jane gave him an awkward half-hug then gave a bigger one to Darcy. 

They parted ways, Thor and Jane into a cab, leaving Darcy and Loki to walk back. 

“Fuck, it’s cold.” She wiggled under his arm until he pulled her close. They fell into step with each other, the desert night’s cool sinking into their skin. “So that wasn’t so awful, right?” 

“We’ll see how tomorrow goes. One limited exposure event does not a reconciliation make.” 

“You’re such a Debbie Downer.” She settled her hand around his waist. “Seriously. We had a great show, your brother is proud of you and your sister-in-law is thrilled to have someone to talk nerdy with. Everything is going your way.” 

He looked up at the spray of stars that pushed through the drowning neon light of the strip. The world was a bright, strange place, nearly alien for a gasping beat and then familiar again. 

“Our way.” He corrected. 

They slipped back into the theater, climbing the iron stairs to their aerie. Sleipnir alighted on Darcy’s shoulder for a nuzzle while Hel muttered judgements into Fenrir’s feathers. Darcy kicked off her shoes, sending them careening into a jumbled pile by the door. Her feet were bare underneath, chipped sparkling nail polish on her toes. 

There was nothing magical about her clothes or special in the way she walked toward him. There was only the familiar scent of her and the way she tilted her face automatically up to his when he drew close. He put his hand at the small of her back, brushed his lips over the curve of her cheek. 

“What?” She asked, hands sliding over his shoulders. 

“I just had a strange thought.” 

“What’s that?” 

“I think I love you.” 

“Oh.” She laughed. “Way to keep up there. That’s old news.” 

“Is it?” He leaned down a little further. “And you?” 

“Wellllll....” She let the ‘L’ dawdle on her tongue. 

“Wench.” He picked her up, carrying to her the bedroom. She shrieked, then clung hard. “I’m hardly going to drop you. Have a little trust.” 

“I let you disappear me with your funky wizard powers. How much more trust do you want?” 

“All of it.” He set her down on the bed, straddling her waist. 

“You’ve got to earn that.” She tugged at the collar of his shirt, drew him close enough for their breath to mingle. “Bit by bit.” 

“I suppose its a good thing we have time then.” 

“All of it.” She ran her hands over his back, dipped the tips of her fingers under the waistband of his pants. “And I do, by the way.” 

“Do what?” 

“Love you.” 

“I knew that.” He kissed her, licked into her mouth and tangled a hand into her hair. 

Below them, the theater stood in darkness except for the flame of a single floating candle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming on the journey! I don't know that I'm quite done with this verse yet. If you want more of me, you can find me at dragonmuse.tumblr.com


End file.
